Irex Corp.

IREX Europe President Paige Alexander has a long record of leadership in international development across Europe and Eurasia. Her guidance led to the formation of IREX Europe as a partner to the International Research & Exchanges Board, the US-based nonprofit organisation of which she is vice president responsible for policy and programming. Prior to joining IREX in 2001, Alexander was acting deputy assistant administrator at the US Agency for International Development's Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, providing overarching policy and program guidance for the department with 1,000 employees in 27 countries and $1.3 billion in annual program funding. Other notable positions include associate director of Project Liberty at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and consultant to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Open Society Institute in Prague.

Menaker brings 15 years of international experience to IREX Europe, having worked from bases in Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union before opening the London office in 2004. At IREX Europe, Menaker focuses on program design and developing partnerships, with particular attention the Middle East and North Africa region and the Central Asian republics. From 2001 through 2003, Menaker designed and implemented development programming for IREX in Russia. She served as Chief of Party for the Russian Independent Print Media Program, funded primarily by the U.S. Agency for International Development to build the capacity of Russian newspaper managers, editors, journalists and media support organisations. Prior to joining IREX, Menaker was a foreign correspondent for the Dallas Morning News covering the Middle East and Africa. Traveling widely in the region, she specialized in reporting on social and political change, including the emerging roles of women and the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In addition, Menaker taught an introductory journalism course at American University of Cairo. During her international reporting career, she has also been based in Warsaw, covering Eastern Europe for The Associated Press, and in Johannesburg, reporting on Africa. In addition to directing IREX Europe, Menaker continues to providing training and consultations as part of media and civil society projects across IREX's portfolio.

De Villiers is a journalist and media program manager with over 10 years of international experience. From 2000 through 2004, de Villiers has managed IREX's media development program in Macedonia. He has a strong background in international affairs and has covered global events as a reporter and editor with BBC World Service Television, BBC World Service Radio, and British Columbia Television in Canada. He has extensive experience implementing programs focusing on journalism and media management, media law, and sensitive issues such as interethnic conflict. De Villiers has developed IREX's programming in Liberia and traveled to Liberia in September and October 2004 to assist in implementing two projects in collaboration with the Partnership for Media and Conflict Prevention in West Africa. In September, de Villiers assisted in establishing the Liberian Media Center, advising on appropriate statutes and a management structure for the Center. De Villiers also assisted in negotiating the control structure of the LMC, putting it firmly in the hands of Liberian civil society through a representative management board. In October, de Villiers returned to Liberia to assist in the large project aimed at reforming Liberia's media laws ahead of national elections in 2005. De Villiers advised in particular on laws affecting the broadcast media and also advised on a working group on broadcast media.

Avis T. Bohlen (chair) has been on the IREX Board since 2002. Currently adjunct professor at Georgetown University, she retired from the US Department of State in 2002 after some 30 years of government service. A career Foreign Service officer, Ambassador Bohlen's posts included, among others, assistant secretary of state for arms control, US ambassador to Bulgaria, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Paris, and numerous positions dealing with European issues and strategic affairs and arms control. Since her retirement, Ambassador Bohlen has been a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and a member of the International Commission for the Balkans. She serves on a number of boards, including those of the Stimson Center, the Defense Advisory Committee of the Center for Naval Analysis, the Atlantic Council, and the American College of Sofia. Ambassador Bohlen earned her master's degree from Columbia University and received her bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College.

Adrian A. Basora is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and director of the Project on Democratic Transitions, focusing on the post-Communist economic and political transitions in Eastern Europe and their implications for other key transitional societies. He is past president and trustee of Eisenhower Fellowships (EF). As a career Foreign Service officer, he served as the US ambassador in Prague from 1992 to 1995 and with the White House from 1989 to 1991 as National Security Council director for European affairs during critical periods of American foreign policy. Earlier, he held varied political and economic assignments in Europe, Latin America, and Washington.

Barry Zorthian is partner in the government and public affairs firm of Alcalde & Fay after retiring as vice president of Time Inc. He has an extensive background in government, journalism, and communications. He is a former senior officer in the US Foreign Service with service in a wide variety of assignments both in the United States and overseas. During his more than seven years in the Foreign Service, Mr. Zorthian was stationed in India and Vietnam, where he was chief US spokesman for four and a half years during the Vietnam War. After a number of years in print and broadcast journalism, he spent 13 years with Voice of America, the last five as program manager. Mr. Zorthian has served on the boards of numerous professional, civic, and charitable organizations, including the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversees Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Mr. Zorthian is also a retired US Marine Corps Reserve colonel with four years of active service during World War II.

Patrick Butler is senior vice president of The Washington Post Company, with responsibility for public policy, new business development, and special corporate projects. He is also president of Washington Post Company Productions, supervising the production of non-fiction television programming for PBS (including the Best Documentary Emmy-winning Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History) and cable networks. In the early 1990s, he chaired PCS Action, a consortium of companies (including the Post Company) that helped launch the digital wireless telecommunications industry. Before joining the Post Company, Butler was Washington vice president of Times Mirror, where he was a founder of the Times Mirror Center for The People & The Press. From 1982 to 1985, he was president of Patrick Butler and Company, a communications consulting firm whose clients included leaders of government, business and media. Previously, he had served as staff vice president of RCA Corporation and as director of corporate public relations for Bristol-Myers Company). In government service, Butler was a speechwriter for President Gerald R. Ford and special assistant to US Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker, Jr. of Tennessee. Butler was legislative director and chairman of the Impeachment Task Force for Congressman Lawrence J. Hogan of Maryland during the Nixon impeachment proceedings in 1974. He was a member of the National Council on the Humanities (1988-1994) and chairman of its Public Programs Committee. Butler is chairman of the Dean's Advisory Council of the American University School of Communication, chairman of the Maryland Public Television Foundation, and (as of September 2008) chairman of the corporate advisory board of SOME (So Others Might Eat). He is also a member of the boards of trustees of American University, the Foundation for the National Archives, the Pew Research Center, The Media Institute, the University of Tennessee College of Communication and Information, the National Endowment for Democracy's Center for International Media Assistance, the International Research and Exchange Program, and the Children's Charities Foundation. He was named a DC-CAPtain for his work in securing enactment of the DC College Access Act, under which the federal government pays the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for District of Columbia students attending colleges nationwide. Butler began his career in 1966 as a reporter for the Chattanooga News - Free Press and then as City Hall reporter for The Chattanooga Post. He later served as assistant director of public information for the Appalachian Regional Commission and as press secretary and environmental policy advisor to Congressman Wilmer "Vinegar Bend" Mizell of North Carolina. Butler majored in political science at the University of Tennessee. He earned a Master of Arts degree (with distinction) in journalism and public affairs at American University, where he has taught graduate courses on The Press and Politics and on 21st Century Journalism. He studied finance and accounting at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and he has been accepted as a Fellow in the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.